Las Vegas youth shares concerns about bullying in his schools

In a letter to View Neighborhood Newspapers, one young man says bullying is rampant at the Summerlin schools he’s attended:

“I’m writing this directly to parents because I don’t think writing essays at school, or putting up posters, or attending assemblies about bullying is working. Even though they share a lot of great information, I see no difference, because they’re bullying five seconds after leaving it. … I’ve figured out some strategies to avoid a lot of it, it is happening all around me, and it’s even crazier now because it involves more than just being mean. It involves sex, being gay, bisexual, cutting, fighting, and the list goes on.”

The author of the letter, Sebastian Jones, 14 , said he first noticed things when he was in first grade at Givens Elementary School, 655 Park Vista Drive. By the time he got to Rogich Middle School, 235 Pavilion Center Drive, he said things were worse.

The student said groups of rowdy boys will hang out in the halls, the cafeteria and the bathrooms and engage in fist fights with one another or throw one another against walls. Get too close, and you risk becoming their target, he added.

Such an instance occurred, he said, when a fellow student threw a punch at him. Sebastian deflected it with his right hand, but the punch was so hard, it broke bones.

“Thank God it wasn’t on the growth plate (of his hand), or he would have had to have surgery,” said his mother, Nicole. “They did nothing to the (bully). And we paid for everything.”

She calls herself a “helicopter mom.” She picks Sebastian up from school every day and is his champion at the dean’s office.

“My phone is strapped on me because I don’t know if I’m going to get a call telling me he was attacked,” she said. ” … When we grew up, things weren’t this way.”

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2013, nearly one in three students (27.8 percent) report being bullied during the school year, with the majority (64.5 percent) saying it happens more than once.

An Urban Institute study by Zweig, Dank, Lachman and Yahner (2013) on bullying revealed 17 percent of students reported being victims of cyberbullying, 41 percent reported being victims of physical bullying, and 45 percent reported being victims of psychological bullying.

Sebastian said he avoids confrontation as much as possible.

“I try to stay away. I’ll go the long way around,” he added. “If there’s (no other path), I’ll walk through them and tell them to ‘Knock it off.’ ”

He said the school has held assemblies on bullying, but the instigators are back to their old ways as soon as the assemblies let out.

“They just laugh at it,” he said. “They don’t feel it matters what other people say. They know that they’re doing it. But they don’t care.”

He added that the school “does nothing.”

Clark County School District officials said the district tackles bullying incidents as soon as it is made aware of them and has policies in place to address bullying.

Soon after the start of the new school year, the district plans a Week of Respect, Oct. 3-7, to help thwart bullying.

Brandon Moeller, assistant director of the Equity and Diversity Education Department for the district, said it has a no-tolerance policy for bullying.

“If they’re notified of a bully incident, they have to begin investigating it immediately,” he said, “and talk to all the kids and people involved and notify the parents and let them know immediately that their child either was the bully or that there was a person subjected to the bullying act.”

Every school enters such incidents into a database, he said, and the state then pulls that information and makes a report.

Teachers are usually the first line of defense in a bullying incident.

“The teacher has to find out as much as they can. The next step is to stop it if it’s happening right there,” said Moeller, “as much as they can, and then the second step is to report it to administration.”

That can be a written or verbal report. Moeller said the administration will then begin its investigation the same day but that it can take “some time,” as there’s often more than one student involved, including witnesses.

Not all incidents are generated by a teacher getting involved. The district’s Say No to Bullying site allows for incident notifications to be created per the CCSD Policy 5137, Safe and Respectful Learning Environment. Once an incident is submitted on the website, an email is generated to the school’s administration, notifying of the report. Reports may be submitted anonymously.

Moeller said school administrators are well aware that a bully’s friends will side with him to stack the deck against the victim. Officials will look at a case more than once.

“If the one student who was bullied is saying that the bully’s friends are all ganging up to tell the same story, our admins aren’t slow,” Moeller said. “They’re used to kids pulling these pranks or making these statements because they know they’re trying to get out of trouble. And they know how to drill down and get (to what really happened). Once they start questioning them, they’ll start telling the truth; it’ll come out. But you almost have to be detectives.”

The final decision of whether an incident was or was not bullying is up to the administration. The target’s family may never know the findings as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents the district from sharing them.

Is the district looking at putting video cameras in every hallway?

“No, no, no,” Moeller said. “I truly think the best way — and we have been working on it for a long time — is to reach the kids and make sure they develop a form of empathy. That’s why our department is so important because we go out there, and we talk about the climate, and the culture of the school really impacts all of that. And if we start with that, making sure people understand empathy and how these (acts) can have a severe effect on other people … One of the things we do is talk about service learning projects, so as we go through a lesson — let’s say history, or science — we ask, ‘What are you going to do to give back to society after you learn this science lesson? Why is that important? Why should we do this?’ And they see a connection, and I think involving kids in those kinds of things is going to reduce the bullying. Just telling them, ‘Don’t do that, or you’ll get a consequence,’ that can reduce it a little bit but not very much. You really have to get them to change their mindset.”

He said affected youths are probably aware of an increase in bullying as there’s an increase in reporting, “which looks bad as far as the numbers, but it’s good to us because the more parents or students come to us and tell us what’s going on, we can investigate it and find out what’s going on and squash it. … ‘Has it been growing?’ I’d say yes because of social media. Stuff when I was growing up, if there was an issue in the classroom, it (stayed there), where these kids can, in two seconds, put it on social media, and it can (reach) 1,500 to 2,000 kids.

“I mean, our schools are huge. They tweet it out, and within a day, 5,000 to 10,000 kids can find out about an incident that occurred. And you can imagine what that does to a kid emotionally when they find out the situation has been put on blast.”

Alex King, programming manager for the Megan Meier Foundation in St. Charles, Mo., said bullies are out to get noticed.

“They do things because they get something out of it. They’re seeking attention or status or stature,” she said. “… Boys act more physical; they’re more verbal in nature. Girls tend to be more active online or behind closed doors or behind their phones. They’re more social-relational, so in general, they’re looking to leave somebody out or start drama and spread rumors, that kind of thing.”

Indeed, the Urban Institute study found that 23 percent of females reported cyberbullying victimization, compared to 11 percent of males.

Stopping a bully requires asserting oneself, using words correctly and giving nonverbal clues that one is not cowering.

“You say those statements, ‘Knock it off,’ and you say it in a way that conveys that you’re serious and that they’re worth more than that,” King said.

She said some youths turn to martial arts to cope. Those disciplines teach one fast moves but also have the effect of relaying self-confidence, and that in itself is enough to thwart a bully, King said.

But for Sebastian , he said he expects the bullying will likely continue this next school year, based on his past experiences.

The state has gotten involved. In May, a statewide initiative to curb bullying in Nevada schools was passed, creating more than 160 new social worker positions at schools. Gov. Brian Sandoval spearheaded an initiative after meeting with the families of three middle school students, including Jason Lamberth, whose 13-year-old daughter committed suicide after severe bullying. At least 100 workers were in schools this spring with more expected for the start of school this fall.

To see CCSD’s policies and reports, visit ccsd.net/bullying. To view the state’s data, visit nevadareportcard.com.

To reach Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan, email jhogan@viewnews.com or call 702-387-2949.